Well, This Has Been a Good Week

(By Toni L. Sandys - TWP)

Around 8:30 this evening, I started pulling photos of Stephen Strasburg, Alex Ovechkin and Blake Griffin. The three men sent to redeem D.C. sports, all once-in-a-generation top-overall types, a trio that would be complete once the Wiz finally caught a break and earned the No. 1 pick in a non-Kwame Brown year.

Yeah, well, that was stupid. I forgot one key thing: I live in Washington, D.C. Breaks are not caught. Breaks are applied to arms and legs, knee caps and ligaments. Dreams are broken. Stadiums are broken. Championship hopes are broken. Promises to build new venues are broken. Sacred covenants with the fans are broken. Spirits are broken. That's what happens with breaks.

(By Jonathan Newton - TWP)

There have been so many bad weeks in recent memory, but this one was pretty nasty. Nats fans saw the Zim streak end and the team lose five six straight to hated cities Philly and Pittsburgh, while learning that Strasburg wouldn't be in the bigs this year. Caps fans saw the season end, at home, in a blowout, to the worst possible opponent. D.C. United fans learned that heart-and-souler Ben Olsen, back from the shelf, would miss three to four weeks with a hamstring problem that will linger who knows how long.

And the Wiz, who so dutifully tanked an entire season, even if they said they weren't, got exactly nothing out of the deal. Fifth! Who wants to go fifth? They could have won five more games and still earned the fifth pick.

Griffin is the terminator. Rubio is foreign flash. Fifth is a month of trade rumors and mock drafts. Fifth, for the Wizards, has been Juwan Howard, back in '94. Yeah, how'd that work out? But even more than the specific result, it's just the insult, the shame of having the second-best odds after a year of misery and getting bupkis for their troubles. I've had about enough. I'm going to watch American Idol now.

Well sports is life and DC sports fans are certainly bleeding inside but life goes on. We can only go up from now and i as far as the lottery. I just think stern is riggin the whole thing. Why cant they do they whole process in public, if everything is base on chance. Good job Stern you cheating bastard

Griffin is undersized for the NBA, Rubio is too slow and small to guard any PG of substance, Thabeet is only useful on one side of the floor. Package the #5 pick and Anfernee Hardaway -- errr, I mean Gilbert Arenas -- for two cold pop tarts, a hot pocket and some cap space.

On the other hand, if the Wizards are smart and package the player or the pick, they could add an experienced and proven NBA front court player to their roster. Aside from possibly Griffin, that might be the best possible outcome. It's not like the Wizards are the second worst team in the league, they just had a lot of injuries and then stupidly fired their coach.

Speaking of good, this was a really good paragraph. Depressing as he**, but good.

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Yeah, well, that was stupid. I forgot one key thing: I live in Washington, D.C. Breaks are not caught. Breaks are applied to arms and legs, knee caps and ligaments. Dreams are broken. Stadiums are broken. Championship hopes are broken. Promises to build new venues are broken. Sacred covenants with the fans are broken. Spirits are broken. That's what happens with breaks.

Well look at it this way: Rubio is slow and completely overrated and Griffin isn't quite a can't miss prospect (an Amare Stoudemeire type is his ceiling which would be oh so awesome for the Wizards' style...). So even the second pick wouldn't have been so great. So, yeah.

"THE WIZARDS ARE SUCH IDIOTS!!!!!! THESE MORONS DON'T EVEN REALIZE THEY SHOULD BE TRYING TO LOSE SO THEY'LL GET THE NUMBER 1 PICK AND TAKE BLAKE GRIFFIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!" -TYPICAL WIZARDS INSIDER COMMENT, 2009

This was the most common type of comment on the Wizards Insider blog for the better part of the six month season. And no matter how many times it was pointed out to these buffoons that the NBA lottery was created just for those kinds of shenanigans, and that finishing with the NBA's worst record still gave them a 75% chance of NOT getting the first pick, these buffoons kept coming with these comments, displaying total disregard for basic probability.

In some ways, I am almost happy that we didn't get the first pick. Maybe in some distant season many light years from now, these same fools who commented endlessly about how "stupid" Ed Tapscott, Ernie Grunfeld, and the rest of the Wizards brass were for not throwing games, maybe they will think twice about making such asinine comments next time.

The thing that is most frustrating is how we constantly get beat by teams from cities that have No national or even less international prominence. In my 33 years in DC I have suffered quite a bit with our sports teams. If you look around the world all of the top teams are from the Capital City. Think Real Madrid, Paris Saint Yermain or Roma. In no other country do you get teams from small blue collar towns beating the teams from the Capital city on a consistent basis.
You also have lots of people who have lived here for 20 plus years and they root for the team from their native “has been” city. Even worse they teach their kids who are born and bred here to root for teams that are hundred s or thousand s of miles away.
Dudes if you live here root for the home team, that’s what “take me out to the ball game” says.

Nothing worse than the guy who grew up here but roots for all the rivals of DC sports teams. Everyone knows that guy. He's a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, loves the Yankees, sports a Duke hat, and all of a sudden he's LeBron James biggest fan.

Problem with the Bullets/Wiz getting the #5 pick is that even if they get a quality player (IE: Garnett type) they wouldn't use him right. He would end up on the end of the bench. Because mgmt thinks this team is a Eastern Conference contender which is NOT the case. We need to get somebody (via trade the pick) that can contribute right NOW & sit one (AJ) of the BIG 3 and have him (A. Jamison) come off the bench. Mr. Pollin it's time for you to put up or sell the team....dish out the money NOW. The window of opportunity is very small. 2 years MAX. Just my thoughts.